Getting to the Heart of Leadership
Emotion and Educational Leadership
- Megan Crawford - Plymouth University, UK
'…The book is framed to illuminate how headteachers experience, and talk about, emotion and meaning in their daily interactions, and sets out to understand how emotion impacts on their leadership.' (author's introduction)
Understanding the close relationship between leadership and emotion is essential for school leaders. This book discusses why emotion is such a powerful component of leadership, and how better knowledge of emotion and leadership can sustain leaders.
The author examines the part leaders, and especially headteachers, play in creating, modifying, and sustaining the emotional coherence of the whole school. The book contains examples of how school leaders experience emotion and meaning in their daily interactions and through stories, the reader can engage with how school climate depends on the personal emotional quality of the leader, and his/her interface with other social relationships in the school.
The book discusses personality and life history, dealing with difficult people and situations, shame and loss, and the future of leadership. All of these are shown through practical examples - primary and secondary case studies as well as through school leaders' reflections on the influence of their life history on leadership and emotion.
This book is for practicing educational leaders and managers, tutors, and students in graduate courses, education courses, and in programs such as the National Professional Qualification for Headship, its equivalent for Children's centers, and other national programs in educational leadership and management.
'[This is] a very accessible book that is written in an engaging and fluid style...Its strong points are the leadership voices that flow through the book and are both captivating and informative and do so much to link theories and ideas to practice...In summary this an excellent book, well worth the read' -
Professor Brent Davies,
The University of Hull Business School
'This book makes an important contribution to the literature on educational leadership and should help to shift the emphasis from rational and accountability-related models to an explicit recognition of the importance of emotions to effective leadership' - Educational Management Administration and Leadership
'[This book] contains a wealth of case studies and vignettes to help leaders be more aware of the ways in which emotion impacts on their practice, and to develop a productive and sustainable set of emotional responses, experiences and leadership tools' - Headteacher Update
'The format is succinct and the language accessible so that the book directly engages with the reader...Given the increasing demands placed on the role of leaders and the importance of both developing and sustaining leaders for education, this book is timely in recognising the challenges facing the sector...Aspiring and emerging leaders in education and beyond will find this book informative and enlightening' - Management in Education
I found this book very thought provoking and intuitively it made sense. It covers an area largely neglected by other leadership texts because emotion has typically been seen as negative. And yet emotion is a part of being human. When asking my sudents to read and make reference to it, this will align with the work we do on Moral Purpose and Understanding Self.
